Mining company takes pollution case to Supreme Court

Sino Metals Leach Zambia Limited has escalated its efforts to prevent a landmark pollution case from reaching trial by filing an appeal with the Supreme Court of Zambia, reports Legalbrief. The appeal, set to be heard on 3 June in Kabwe, challenges a November 2025 High Court ruling that dismissed the company’s attempt to throw out a constitutional petition brought by 176 residents of Kalusale and Chambishi, with the support of environmental and community activists, Chilekwa Mumba and David Ngwenyama, and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC). According to a statement by the SALC, the petition, filed in September 2025 following one of Zambia’s worst industrial environmental disasters, alleges that the catastrophic collapse of Sino Metals’ tailings dams violated the petitioners’ constitutional rights to life, dignity, property, privacy, expression, association, movement, and protection from inhuman treatment and a clean and healthy environment. Rather than engaging with those claims on the merits, Sino Metals has pursued a series of procedural challenges to halt the case before evidence is heard, states the SALC. On 17 November 2025, the High Court dismissed all of Sino Metals’ grounds for striking out the petition.

The company has now appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, raising nine grounds. The respondents, represented by Malambo & Co and Lusitu Chambers, with support from SALC, argue that all grounds are without merit and that the appeal should be dismissed with costs. Sino Metals’ grounds of appeal raise a range of procedural and jurisdictional objections. Key issues include: whether the Bill of Rights applies to private companies; whether the petition was properly brought; whether the settlement agreements bar the claims; whether there is a multiplicity of proceedings; and the human cost of delay. Legalbrief notes that the Supreme Court hearing on 3 June will determine whether the High Court was correct to allow the constitutional case to proceed to trial. The respondents argue the appeal is an attempt to use procedural law as a shield against accountability. The case is significant beyond Zambia. It raises foundational questions about whether private mining companies, many of them foreign-owned, can be held directly accountable under African constitutional human rights frameworks, and whether communities affected by industrial pollution can access constitutional remedies.